Thursday, October 16, 2014

Window on Eurasia: Moscow Takes Some Finnish Territory and Buys More Near Strategic Sites

Paul
Goble

Staunton, October 16 – Citing the 1947
Paris Peace Treaty between Moscow and Helsinki, Russia took control of a 1.78
hectare undeveloped parcel of land in Finland’s Aaland Islands in 2009 and transferred
it to Vladimir Putin’s office, according to Jarmo Ratia, a former Finnish
official who said he was talking now because of “changes in the international
situation.”

The paper added that in many cases,
those Russians involved in the purchase of Finnish land have links to the
Russian security services and Vladimir Putin personally.

Given the kind of “hybrid war” the
Kremlin leader has unleashed in Ukraine and threatened to begin elsewhere, such
purchases could provide the basis for Russian actions in many countries where
ostensibly ordinary Russians, the Russian government, or the Russian Orthodox
Church of the Moscow Patriarchate own property.